This is Lightning Safety Week. Dangerous yet fascinating lightning demands respect and inspires reverence.
Here are three important lightning safety resources and three interesting lightning phenomena:
If you haven't already do complete the Weather Hazards training offered at MyScouting
Lightning Safety Week Information from NOAA
Summer is the peak season for one of the nation's deadliest weather phenomena— lightning. But don't be fooled, lightning strikes year round. The goal of this Website is to safeguard U.S. residents from lightning. In the United States, an average of 62 people are killed each year by lightning:
- To date, in 2009, 15 people have been killed by lightning
- In 2008, 28 people died due to lightning strikes
- Hundreds of others were injured.
- Of the victims who were killed by lightning in 2008:
- 100% outside
- 79% male
- 36% males between the ages of 20-25
- 32% under a tree
- 29% on or near the water
Lightning Precautions at Medicine for the Outdoors
One of the world's experts on lightning injuries is Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, who is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Lightning Injury Research Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
As Dr. Cooper has noted, most people seriously underestimate the risk of being struck and do not know when or where to take shelter ... it is very important that everyone who might be caught in a thunderstorm be able to make a rapid assessment of the risk, and seek the best shelter or protective positioning possible. This is a personal responsibility for most, and a very important skill for group leaders.
Slow Motion Lightning
Tom Warner's slow motion video camera records 7200 frames per second creating an incredible, elegant record of lightning strikes.
Lichtenberg Figures
The first Lichtenberg figures were actually 2-dimensional patterns formed in dust on the surface of charged insulating plates in the laboratory of their discoverer, German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799). Stoneridge Engineering creates captured lightning using high voltage and acrylic resin.
Fulgurites
Formed when lightning with a temperature of at least 1,800 degrees Celsius instantaneously melts silica on a conductive surface and fuses grains together and leaves evidence of the lightning path. Sometimes referred to as petrified lightning.
Tubes can be up to several centimeters in diameter, and meters long. Their color varies depending on the composition of the sand they formed in, ranging from black or tan to green or a translucent white. The interior is normally very smooth or lined with fine bubbles; the exterior is generally coated with rough sand particles and is porous. Root like in appearance fulgurites often show branching or small holes.
More at Wikipedia
Recent Comments